Magic Leap’s rumored AR glasses may have been revealed in patent

Magic Leap's much-hyped augmented reality system has been an object of skepticism ever since the company was funded at a high level back in 2014.

Magic Leap's much-hyped augmented reality system has been an object of skepticism ever since the company was funded at a high level back in 2014. The tech world seems fairly obsessed with the possibilities, as is the company's founders, but no one is quite sure what the ultimate product will entail. We're a bit closer today with a newly granted patent (originally filed in 2015) for a smallish set of eyewear that could be the delivery system for Magic Leap's AR system.

The 10-page patent document has eight views of the AR glasses, which seem to include dual cameras on each side of the eyepieces, a long wire attached to each earpiece and some peripheral vision shields on top bottom and sides of the glasses. A Magic Leap spokesperson told Business Insider that the pictured images are not the actual product, however. "As you know, we file lots of patents that take a long time to get approved and so what you are looking at is not our product," she said. Other sources inside the company told Business Insider that while the basic design is similar to what is being used in-house, the current hardware is bulkier to include a depth sensor between the lenses. One source said there is only one camera on each side of the specs, as well, and that they look like thicker-rimmed hipster glasses. We've reached out to the Magic Leap for comment and will update this post when we hear back.

Whether these specific drawings reflect current hardware or designs from two-years ago, it's still nice to see some movement from the muchbeleaguered startup. Plus, these smaller spectacles are a pretty significant improvement, size-wise, over the previous backpack-style systems we've seen from Magic Leap.